Blackburn Rovers failed to get a deal over the line for Nottingham Forest midfielder Lewis O'Brien because of two key reasons that caused the former to miss the deadline, according to yesterday's Patreon report from Alan Nixon.

Blackburn had inserted a £10m permanent option into the agreement with the player not winning a huge amount of game time at the City Ground recently, with his clause being activated if Rovers win promotion to the top flight.

This is a real possibility considering Jon Dahl Tomasson's side are still in the top-six mix and have managed to minimise draws and maximise wins, something that could continue to be crucial for them between now and the end of the season.

 

 

With this option being included, the EFL wanted to know what would happen in terms of this permanent agreement if Tomasson's side suffered a major decline and ended up being relegated from the Championship at the end of this term.

The governing body wanted clarification on this before they were happy to sanction a deal and had flagged this as an issue during the final half an hour of the January transfer window, with Rovers failing to submit a fresh document to rectify this issue before the 11pm deadline.

Blackburn are also reported to have spelt O'Brien's agent's name wrong when filling out an agent agreement form and that delayed this agreement further - although the club are appealing the EFL's decision to block this deal.

The Verdict:

This report doesn't sound great for Rovers, especially the agent part of this story because that was very easily avoidable.

And with this deal now looking unlikely to go through, you really have to feel for the player because he isn't part of Forest's 25-man squad and with this, he may not play again this season despite the fact he's fit.

Some form of solution does need to be found for him because he will want to be playing regularly, with Steve Cooper's side potentially able to explore a couple of different options to get him out of the door temporarily.

They forked out a sizeable fee for him in the summer and may be wary that his potential lack of playing time for the rest of the season could reduce his valuation considerably.

Although he has a chance to raise his price tag again next season, he may not be part of Cooper's plans if his recent omissions from the starting lineup are anything to go by, with the ex-Huddersfield Town man seemingly a victim of the Reds' recruitment drive that he was part of.

It would be good to hear more from Blackburn in response to this report though - because this doesn't reflect well on them if these two reported reasons are completely accurate. This is certainly a saga that all parties can learn from.